


Works No Longer In Progress 2016

by copperbadge



Category: Avengers Academy (Video Game), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Developing Friendships, F/M, Little bit of angst, M/M, Movie Night, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-14
Updated: 2016-12-14
Packaged: 2018-09-08 14:21:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8848417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperbadge/pseuds/copperbadge
Summary: Sam's unfinished and unlikely-to-be-finished fanfic for 2016. It's all Avengers this year: one Avengers Academy fic, one modern-day Captain America AU, and one that's mostly general Avengers with a Steve-centric slant.





	1. Avengers Academy

_I was never really sure where I was going with this one, but either way I ran out of steam. I think it's kind of almost a complete story in itself. Enjoy!_

The Academy dorm is super-empty at first, but Fury turned down Tony's suggestion that boys and girls double up (he was joking, okay, _God_ ). So on the boys' floor of the dorm right now they each have a room to themselves, even if every room has two beds, and it's Sam across the hall and Loki on one side.

On the other side is a door with a hammer on the whiteboard, and Sam's other bed has a blanket with a Captain America shield on it, so Tony thinks Fury's expecting more recruits. He's not going to let anyone else stay in HIS room unless it's Rhodey, though. He trusts Rhodey, and misses him, even if he's not sure how he knows him, and doesn't know how he knows Rhodey is coming.

The Academy is confusing like that; Tony always has a sense, lingering on the edge of his consciousness, that he's not where he should be and nobody else is either, and fighting with Hydra as if they're rival schools is...not quite correct. When he tries to remember how he came here, the thought slips away from him, and he ends up tinkering with tech for an hour, or going over to Club A to make a scene, or blasting off with Sam.

Sam's really nice. He leaves his door open all the time, even at night, so if Tony leaves his door open he can look across the hall from his bed and talk to Sam in his.

"When do you think the others will arrive?" he asks one night. He's in bed, and Sam is sitting up in bed reading a book on birdwatching, and Loki is lying on his back in the hallway making light dance for them. A floor below he can hear Jan excitedly narrating some event from the day, presumably to Natasha, since Enchantress is still deciding whether she's going to join the Academy and isn't living in the dorm yet.

"Dunno," Sam said. "We're supposed to be helping recruit them. I guess Fury has to approve them before we get a chance."

"As long as it's not my brother," Loki says, and Tony eyerolls. Sam smiles gently.

"Probably will be, eventually," Sam says. "I can't wait for Steve to get here."

"I feel the same way about Rhodey!" Tony agrees. "But I don't know why! Or how I even know!"

Sam looks perplexed at this, and even Loki looks like he's confused.

"Do you think there's something weird about us?" Tony ventures. "Beyond like, the obvious."

Sam's face is a complicated mix of worry and amusement. "There's a lot of obvious weird."

"You don't have to rub it in," Tony grumbles.

"I didn't mean just you, narcissist," Sam laughs. "You're not any weirder than Loki."

"I'm not weird. I'm normal, everyone else is weird," Loki objects.

"Pretty sure that's not how normal works," Sam replies. "But I don't know anymore, it's hard to...compare it. It feels like we've been here a long time, and also...not. You know?"

Tony thinks about finding the helmet he hasn't built yet, under debris in a timefog zone. He thinks about how unsettling Professor Pym is, and how Natasha knows things he doesn't think a teenager should have to know.

"Do high school students still have sleepovers?" he asks hesitantly.

"We share a wall," Loki points out, but Sam sets his book away.

"Sure," he says, gesturing at his room. "I got a spare bed. One of you's gonna have to take the fl -- "

Tony is across the hall and leaping onto the bed with the Captain America blanket, and Loki sounded dismissive but he hurries after, zapping the carpet of Sam's room to transform it into a soft place to lie down. Sam raids his snack stash, tossing chips and cellophane rolls of cookies to them, and Tony settles in close enough to touch Loki's shoulder if he wanted, and to hear Sam speak quietly.

"You know the best Captain America stories, Sam," Tony says, aware he sounds like a child, but the Academy is big and strange and Sam doesn't seem averse to providing comfort. "Tell us one."

"You gonna put those lasers on my wings like I want?" Sam asks, grinning.

"Soon as Fury lets me," Tony says. "I can put strobe lights on them. You'll look like you have lightsaber wings."

"Deal!" Sam blurts, excited. "Okay. Captain America story. Oh! So this one time, Captain America was fighting Baron Zemo, who had invented these crazy goop creatures that looked like flying bread dough..."

***

Tony honestly has never been sure how much Fury knows about him, or how hard he works to manipulate him.

The thing is, Tony knows he has a teenager's body, a teenager's hormones and occasional poor impulse control, but nearly everyone forgets that just because he looks like a kid and acts like an idiot doesn't mean he really is either. And to have a man's intellect in this game is an advantage to be hidden, so he does, and that's easy enough.

He knows Fury is trying to manipulate him, play on his needy desire for approval not only by authority figures but by his peers. He knows Pepper still sometimes thinks he's an ineffectual horndog, and he cultivates that around the others too, because it makes him at least _seem_ normal.

But he is not normal, and all the flying with Sam and chasing Natasha and partying with Jan won't change that. Even tutoring Loki won't change that. It just masks it.

Here's the double-bluff game he and Fury play:

He needs to study. He's not doing great in History. (He has a hard time paying attention to be honest, so not all the failing is a crafted cover.) Fury tells him to work on his research project, which Tony has titled Historical Llllllaaaaaadies but which will actually, someday, be a decent paper on stone badass Abigail Adams.

Fury doesn't really care if he studies Historical Ladies or not. Because Fury knows if you make Tony Stark sit still for more than twenty minutes, Tony Stark falls asleep.

Fury makes him study in the Archives because Fury wants him well-rested, wants him healthy. Whether that's paternal affection (unlikely) or a general's concern for a soldier (possible) or Fury dicking with him just because he can (probable) Tony doesn't know.

But he's tired, he's tired a lot, because he works every hour of daylight there is, and often at night he sneaks out of the dorm and across to Stark Tower to keep working.

So sometimes when Fury tells him to go study, he does, because he's _so tired._

And if someone catches Tony drooling into his History textbook, well, everyone knows he's a skirt-chasing slacker who can't shoot straight. Even Sam looks at him with worry on his face sometimes. Sometimes he's working with JARVIS on the balcony of Stark Tower while Sam, across the footpath, beats the hell out of a heavy bag. Sometimes Tony leans on the rail of the balcony and watches him, because watching Sam at work is wonderful, but then Sam shoots him a concerned look and Tony realizes he's been napping standing up again.

And...it's been different, since Cap showed up.

It was fine when Cap was new and waiting for his scholarship funding to come through and his textbooks to arrive; then he was just some random tall hottie doing constant calisthenics in the quad. Since Cap started classes and training with them, though, he's just been everywhere. He and Sam are now friends, Tony can't work out how or why that happened, and when he's not stealing Sam from Tony, he's watching Tony. He watches Tony _constantly._

"He's just curious about you, you know," Sam says, standing at the drinks counter at Club A. Jan and Natasha and Loki are all dancing, but Tony doesn't feel like it.

He's programmed the robot server to slip him one drink a night (just one; Fury would catch on if he got more, and Tony knows he's young to be drinking, but alcohol and Stark genius go hand in hand, he remembers that from...somewhere) and it's a nice aged scotch, so he's just hanging out, waiting for Bevtron to dig it out and pour.

"Why's he so curious about me?" Tony asks Sam, who shrugs.

"Why wouldn't he be? You're interesting," Sam says. "And you're kind of a mystery, no offense."

"Nothing mysterious about me. My life is an open book. With lots of illustrations. Practically a comic book," Tony says.

Sam gives him a look that seems like tolerant frustration. "Sure, Tony."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Tony asks, but he's distracted, because Tall, Blond, and Perfect is arriving, slipping past the girls with a blushing backwards glance at them, dodging around Loki gracefully.

"Evening," Steve says, leaning on the counter next to Tony, giving him and Sam a nod. "Long day, huh?"

"I was studying flight plans all day," Sam announces, tipping his head back in exhaustion. "And then I couldn't get into the dorm to work out because they're upgrading it again."

"Yeah, that's my bad," Tony admits. "But we can't run the dorm upgrade overnight, we have to sleep sometime."

"Just let me get my heavy bag in first, next time," Sam says.

"Wouldn't dream of denying you," Tony replies with a sweet smile, and Sam grins at him.

"What about you?" Steve asks Tony.

"What about me what?" Tony says, eyeing Bevtron, who is pouring out his One Drink.

"Didn't see you around much."

"Oh -- I was out at HQ, studying that alien armor," Tony says airily. "And then I had a nice talk with Enchantress."

"A talk, huh?" Steve asks, frown lines forming in his chiseled features.

"We talk," Tony answers, feeling defensive. So they'd talked in the hot tub. It's a good way to relax muscles sore from flight, and he always feels better after. Even if Enchantress can get a little pushy.

"Bet you do," Steve says with an odd expression, and without looking he stretches out a hand to catch the drink that Bevtron slides down the counter. It's Tony's scotch. Tony watches as Steve picks it up, says, "Mind if I try it?" and downs the _entire thing_.

"Excuse you," Tony says, because he's not sure how to deal with a) getting caught drinking by Captain America, b) getting caught hacking Bevtron to give him booze by Captain Ameirca, c) Cap totally bogarting his drink, and d) trying to sort all this out without letting on to Sam what he's doing, because Sam will Disapprove.

"That was tasty," Steve says, licking his lips. "You know the Serum makes me immune to all kinds of things. Makes me very observant too. Scuse me," he adds, as Loki cuts in on Jan and Natasha, pulling Natasha away for (no doubt) a scheming session.

Steve, ever the gentleman, claps Sam on the shoulder as he passes, says "Have fun, boys," and joins Jan on the dance floor so she won't be dancing alone. Jan always seems so tiny, but in heels she's almost as tall as Steve, even if he's about twice as broad as her. They're very attractive together, really. There are some very pretty people at the Academy.

"What was that all about?" Tony asks Sam, still a little bewildered.

"Search me," Sam says, but he looks smug. "You wanna dance?"

"No," Tony replies, feeling a little sullen. And restless; dancing won't get him what he needs. "You want to go flying?"

"Is that a trick question?" Sam asks, and runs for the dorm to fetch his gear. "Meet you on the quad!"

***

The dorm is a lot fuller now than it used to be. Steve is rooming with Sam across the hall from Tony; Rhodey hasn't arrived yet, but everyone knows his spot is saved in Tony's room. The girls are starting to double-up too, Jan with Jess and Enchantress with Kamala, Pepper with Maria first but now alone for the moment because Maria's in the other dorm. 

Tony fretted about Kamala -- she's not actually any younger than the rest of them but she _seems_ younger somehow, and he feels a strong urge to protect her. Turns out he needn't have worried; Kamala is a precious cinnamon roll of a child who gives zero fucks about Enchantress's brand of innuendo, and isn't ever in the dorm anyway.

Natasha refuses a roommate, but then, that's Natasha for you.

At any rate, both dorms come together for dinner which means that dinner is a pretty rowdy affair, and if they don't go to Club A after dinner, they stay in the dorm and watch movies. Steve has made them watch a lot of movies lately; he says he's catching up, but Tony notices most nights he only suggests it after Tony has floated the idea of Club A.

Steve flops down on the couch, scootching up against Tony, shoving him into Sam who's curled against the arm. Sam shifts obligingly and Tony tucks up against him, while Steve stretches his legs out and then jerks them back before Kamala trips over them. She blushes and starts to apologize; Steve waves it off and gestures her down onto the sofa next to him before Enchantress can steal the last slice of couch. Tony glances at Sam, who mirrors his amused look.

"What are we watching?" Tony asks, as Loki zaps a bowl of unpopped popcorn. It pops in a single explosive burst, and they're only saved from a snow of kernels by Natasha, who quickly slams a textbook down on the top of the bowl to keep it all inside.

"Natasha picked," Steve says.

Tony groans, rolling his face into Sam's shoulder. "It's not gonna be Dr. Zhivago again, is it?"

"Uncultured swine," Natasha pronounces, mostly without venom. "No, it's not Dr. Zhivago, you don't deserve Dr. Zhivago."

Sam's hand gently rises to turn Tony's head out of his shoulder, but when he's done his arm stays around Tony's shoulders.

"It's a horror movie!" Jan squeaks excitedly. "From Romania!"

"Is it subtitled?" Tony asks.

"It has _cool_ subtitles!"

"Cool subtitles," Tony repeats to Steve.

"I don't mind subtitles," Steve says, looking stubborn.

"I like subtitles," Pepper adds.

"I can't multitask when there's subtitles," Tony points out. "I have readings to go over from the alien armor, I have to finish the essay on Historical Ladies, I have to catch up on my Cheese Monthly reading -- "

"That's not a real thing," Loki says.

"It's a very real thing!"

"It is," Pepper confirms. "It's a terrifyingly real thing."

"I need to know what they're saying about optimal cave temperatures for properly aging cheddar. They did all kinds of controlled testing. It's scientific," Tony insists.

Steve rests a hand on Tony's head, rotates it so that Tony's face is pointed at the TV, and then releases it with a little shove so that it flops over onto Sam's shoulder.

"You work too hard," Steve says. Enchantress, Kamala, and Loki all gasp. Pepper looks personally insulted.

" _Captain America_ thinks he works too hard," Kamala whispers to Loki, scandalized.

"I know, mortals are so delightfully weird," Loki whispers back.

Tony means to grab his phone out of his pocket and do some work once the movie has started; he'll give it ten minutes, to make Cap happy, then sneak his way into the server and read about Abigail Adams. But after five minutes his eyelids are drooping, and Sam and Steve are both really warm and comfortable, and by ten minutes in Tony is out like a light.

He wakes to what is undoubtedly the climax of the film, given the noise and violence involved. Sam is sitting very still; Steve has been...invaded, is probably the best word for it, with Jan halfway on his lap and clinging to him. Kamala has moved to the floor with the Asgardians and Loki is hiding behind her while she eats what is probably her fifth bowl of popcorn with a faintly distracted air. Enchantress and Maria are both doing their nails, impervious to the bloodshed onscreen. Pepper is...possibly taking notes.

Tony shifts a little, stretching out a cramp in one leg, and Loki immediately takes advantage, crawling up into the tiny gap between him and Steve and settling himself behind Tony's shoulder like an oversized toddler to hide behind him. Steve looks faintly amused. Loki's cold-ass nose presses into Tony's neck. 

There's so much he should be doing, or could be doing; coding, studying, building, proving he's meant to be here, that he really is a superhero. But nobody else has to do that, he thinks rebelliously, and surely a superhero is meant to spend time with his friends, being human, as much as he's meant to be aloft fighting AIM or Hydra or whatever Fury's worried will be thrown at them next.

So he lets himself stay until the confusing climax comes to what appears to be an ambiguous ending, and then he starts to untangle himself. Loki clutches at his shirt, however, and Sam tightens his grip.

"We'll watch the sequel tomorrow night," Steve announces.

"Cool. That won't be confusing at all," Tony says, trying to wrestle himself free, to no avail.

"And we're up early tomorrow for combat training at the robo dojo," Steve says. "So everyone needs to get to bed."

Natasha, with secret super spy mother-hen skills, begins herding Jan and Enchantress towards the girls' wing on the ground floor, Kamala following sleepily after. Tony's about to sneak over to Stark Tower but instead somehow ends up being led upstairs by Sam, marched into his room and made to change into pajamas before climbing into bed. He can hear Steve moving around in the room he and Sam share, and through the open window he can hear the clatter of Loki in the other dorm, removing his helm and wristlets and who knows what other decorative metal he wears. Tony is convinced he's wearing Asgardian gold underwear half the time. Asgardian gold probably doesn't chafe.

Tony tries to mumble out a note to JARVIS to investigate the possibilities of non-chafing metal underwear for people who want serious groin protection, but it comes out garbled and incoherent as he slides right back into glorious unconsciousness.

***

The next morning, Sam wakes him up before even Steve is up, rig in his hand.

"Let's ditch combat class and go flying," he says in a whisper, leaning in through Tony's cracked-open door.

"What the goddamn time do we call this?" Tony asks, consulting the holographic clock on his bedside table. "Sam, it's five in the morning!"

"You gotta get up really early to get up before Captain America," Sam hisses.

"Why would I want to be up before Captain America? Have I had some kind of break with reality?" Tony mumbles into his pillow.

"Because you want to go flying with _me_ ," Sam says, but he sounds less confident now, more like he knows he might have made a huge mistake.

And yes, of course he has made a huge mistake trying to wake Tony up at FIVE IN THE MORNING, but his heart was in the right place, and Tony can't say no to Sam.

"Fine," he grumbles, "but I'm not putting real clothes on under the armor."

Sam does a little fistpump and dances around while Tony suits up, and together they go clanking up the stairs to the rooftop platform. With a graceful leap and a snap of his wings, Sam's airborne, and Tony rockets up to join him.

"Let's go out over the timefog," Tony calls, turning a lazy barrel roll. "Steve's gonna see us if we stay over the quad."

"Race you to the Makluan's tail!" Sam agrees, rotating and zipping off to the south. Tony pours on the power to catch up, until his toes get warm and he has to ease off just as they're neck-and-neck. Sam glances at him, eyes lit up --

And then a hot updraft from the timefog sets Sam pinwheeling off and interrupts Tony's repulsors. He goes tumbling down, turning somersaults in the air, and he's reminded they don't know what happens if you walk into the timefog, probably nothing good --

Then Sam catches him by the ankle, swooping so low Tony's fingers almost skim the rising mist, before they're spiraling up into the cloudless sky again. Tony's boot jets vibrate to tell him they're active again, and he twists to give Sam the sign to let go. Sam nods, releases him, and hovers while Tony drops, swings his legs down, and gets the jets going.

"Phew," Sam says as Tony joins him, the Makluan's tail visible in the distance but forgotten in the panicked adrenaline of the moment. "You gotta start wearing a parachute."

"So I can fall into the timefog and probably be zapped into the future...more slowly?" Tony asks with a grin. "Nah! Every time they fail I just find something new to fix, and anyway you caught me," he adds, and then without warning he takes off for the tail.

"Hey! No fair, we paused the race!" Sam yells behind him. Tony turns his face into the wind and laughs.


	2. Modern-Day Steve/Peggy AU

_I was writing this as a gift fic but I wrote a better one instead, so this one remains unfinished._

"All right, Chorus Girl," Phillips said, laying a folder in front of Steve, and Steve rolled his eyes.

"I regret ever telling you about my checkered past, General," he said, picking up the folder and paging through it. Bucky leaned around his shoulder to read over it.

"You act like we don't do background checks. I'd've found out about it sooner or later," Phillips said, checking his phone.

"Stop playing Candy Crush on Army time," Bucky said.

"You shut your Brooklyn mouth," Phillips said cheerfully.

"Gentlemen," Steve said, lifting the top page and coming face to face with a _breathtaking_ photograph, a young woman with huge brown eyes and a cupid's-bow mouth, hair in tight curls around her face. She also had about a million medals and ribbons on her uniform, which didn't hurt.

"Captain Margaret Carter," Phillips said. "Most people call her Peggy."

"From the look of her sheet," Steve said, tearing himself away from her photograph and studying her history, "I would imagine most people call her _sir_."

"That too," Phillips said. "Her unit's one of mine but they enjoy a...degree of autonomy I can't afford to give you because you'd take advantage."

"You saying she doesn't?" Bucky asked.

"She's smarter'n you about it and doesn't get caught," Phillips replied. "Until now. She and her unit were meant to take out a cell we've had our eye on for a while. They've gone silent."

"The Howling Commandos," Steve read aloud.

"Sounds badass," Bucky observed. "So what is this, straight-up search and rescue?"

"More or less. The Commandos are tough to kill," Phillips said. "But when they're silent for more than a week, I generally assume they could use backup. We're going to drop you at their last known to see what you can find."

"What kind of team do I get?" Steve asked.

"You'll be dropping into disputed territory in a hot zone where local militia has been known to dismember American GIs," Phillips said.

"So I don't get a team," Steve sighed.

"You can have Barnes."

"Thanks, General," Bucky drawled.

"And I want Sam," Steve said.

"Fine!" Phillips rolled his eyes. "Barnes and Wilson, and if you get either of them killed I'm taking it out of your paycheck."

Steve flipped back to Captain Carter's photograph. "This should be fun," he said brightly.

***

They were meant to jump over the drop site according to the GPS coordinates Phillips had programmed for them, but Steve always preferred to eyeball it, and Sam was better than GPS most of the time anyway. Even in the dark he had a better feel for the terrain than most.

"We're about ten minutes out," Stark called from the pilot's seat.

"We gotta jump now," Sam said. "This is the spot, GPS is wrong. And there's roads nearby, which means vehicles we can jack."

"Hey, I'm just the messenger," Stark said. Sam checked Steve and Bucky's packs, then gave them the go sign. Steve jumped, trusting Sam's eye; he heard Bucky over his earpiece as he jumped, and then the snap of Sam's Falcon rig.

"I'm gonna coast ahead with the heat-vision goggles and see if I can find them," Sam said.

"Whistle if you do," Steve replied. "See you at the site, Wilson."

By the time he and Bucky had landed and cleared their chutes, Sam was touching down nearby.

"There's a shack about a mile east with more bodies in it than you'd expect, and a cold spot where I think they've got a tunnel mouth," he said. "I think we should -- "

He was interrupted by an explosion, at what Steve thought was probably about a mile east.

"Let's go," he said. Sam hit the air again; Steve took off running, Bucky behind him.

They reached the clearing just as another explosion leveled the shack; Steve could make out only indistinct shapes in front of the flames.

"Sam, are you up top?" he asked.

"I'm here," Sam said.

"Hit your floods, please?"

There was a flash of illumination -- men in ragged camo and trucker caps, some in the remains of military uniforms, some shirtless -- and in the middle of it all, the woman with the cupid's-bow mouth and the badass reputation.

"Jesus Christ!" she called. "Kill the lights, I'm trying to destroy a terrorist cell here!"

"We're here to help!" Steve yelled.

"Do I look like I need help?" she demanded. "We've been plotting this for a week, now put the bloody lights out!"

"Sam, kill the lights," Steve said.

"Much better," Captain Carter said, in a satisfied kind of way, over the rattle of semiautomatic gunfire.

Steve Rogers fell in love.

He didn't have much time to register the sensation, too busy trying to tell the good guys from the bad. He was accustomed to this kind of firefight, but that really only meant he knew how quickly it could go bad -- and sure enough, just as he was rallying the men he'd come there to save, who very clearly did not really need saving, Bucky took fire.

"Sam!" Steve called, but Sam was already swooping. "Take him!"

Sam grabbed Bucky, who was cradling his arm, shoulder wounded and bloody. The rest of the soldiers were making for the road, but Steve could only see, through a filter of red rage, the man who shot him.

"We have to finish them off!" Captain Carter yelled, taking off after the last few men, Bucky's shooter among them. Steve cursed, fell _more_ in love, and followed.

Which was, in a roundabout way, how they ended up in Outer Latveria for two weeks.

***

"So there's a problem," Phillips said, when Steve used his encrypted satphone to call in from the fortunately-deserted barn he and Captain Carter had sheltered in once they'd wrought vengeance on Bucky's shooter and realized they were, now, outnumbered.

"Is it Buck?" Steve asked, worried.

"No, he's fine; he's in surgery but they're not worried. The rest of the Commandos made it to and through the border, too. Dum Dum Dugan would like to harass Captain Carter when we're done, by the way."

"That can wait. What's the issue?"

Carter, nursing some bruises from a nearby hay bale, watched him warily.

"Well, we violated Latverian airspace when we dropped you."

"So?"

"So Von Doom happened to catch it. One in a million chance, but..." Phillips trailed off.

"No air pickup for a while," Steve said.

"Von Doom's not happy and he's tightened his radar net."

"Okay, so, send in some ground transport."

"Yeahhhh, the Commandos took care of that when they busted the border going the other way," Phillips said. "And also it gets a little absurd sending a rescue party after the rescue party, Rogers." 

"So what are we supposed to do?" Steve asked.

"There's a safe-house not far from your current location. Hole up there for a few weeks, wait for von Doom to unclench. Once security loosens up, I'll let you know you can walk out."

"Daily check-ins?"

"Better make it weekly. Von Doom's listening."

"Right," Steve sighed. "Address of the safe-house?"

"Carter knows where it is. Hand her over," Phillips said. Steve held out the phone to Captain Carter. "Someone named Dum Dum wants to harass you, the boss says."

"Glorious," she groaned, taking the phone. "Hi, Timothy. No, I did not. No, you absolutely are not to. No, send Gabriel. Because Gabriel won't rifle my underwear drawer. Well, you'll claim you did. No, goodbye, Timothy."

She hung up the phone and switched it off, passing it back. "Problems men don't have," she said, flopping back on the hay bale.

"That's actual harassment," Steve said.

"He wouldn't really, but he likes it when I choke him down," she said. "He just doesn't know the time and place to cease threatening to snoop in my bedroom."

"If it helps, my pal Buck totally rummages in my apartment every time he's there, and I think he might live there now, so," Steve said, seating himself on the floor next to the bale. "Sending someone to feed the cat?"

"Goldfish," she said.


	3. Feelings, For The Use Of

_This was inspired by a tag to a post I wrote; in the Avengers Academy game at one point Steve has a task called "Deal With Your Feelings", to which I responded "Son, I don't even do that in real life." captainneverever on tumblr reblogged with the tag["If the army meant for him to have feelings he'd have been issued feelings"](http://captainneverever.tumblr.com/post/140744173120/copperbadge-son-i-dont-even-do-that-in-real) which I thought was hilarious. _

"I'm not saying I'm not willing to do it," Steve said, leaning on a wall as Clint and Bruce directed traffic. "I'm just saying I don't know why _we_ were called out for this."

Tony, who was barely visible as he oversaw the whole thing from above, snorted down the comm line. "Strange and weird is what we do, Cap. Are you saying this isn't strange or weird?"

"No, this is very strange and weird," Steve replied. "But my point is that it's not dangerous or violent. Giant frogs in Central Park, robot invaders who speak in the third person, random lasers, all of that I'm happy to come out for. But SHIELD could be doing this. Hell, if I trusted the NYPD not to shoot them, the _police_ could be doing this." 

"It's still interesting," Tony said, continuing to scan the interdimensional rift that had opened on one of Manhattan's busiest streets. It had dumped about three dozen short, humanoid creatures into their dimension, and rounding them up and getting them back through the rift was taking up Avengers time, if not perhaps being the best use of Avengers resources.

The humanoids were friendly, inquisitive, about three feet tall, and really hairy. In the privacy of his own mind, Steve had been calling them Hobbits. He'd been very relieved when Clint started doing it too. 

"This isn't a good use of our time. There are better things I could be doing," Steve said. 

"Like hunting for B -- " Tony started, but Steve cleared his throat. "Right. Yeah, whatever," he sighed. "Clint, are we a hundred percent sure there were no stragglers?"

"Natasha's doing a sweep now. She's very thorough," Clint said. "Tash?"

"If there are any left, they're so determined to stay here that I think we ought to let them," Natasha replied. 

"Well, New York is a city of opportunity. If I were a hobbit I'd stay here too," Tony said. 

"You _are_ short and hairy," Bruce remarked. 

"Do we dare get into who is hairier, Chewbacca?" Tony asked. "Anyway, I have some math here, I'm going to do a thing and seal off the Shire from Earth. Bruce, check your phone?"

Steve pushed off from the wall and joined Clint at the rift as Bruce scrolled through something on his phone. Peering through, he could catch glimpses of a grassy, blue-skyed world with lots of trees. 

"Looks nice," he said. 

"I bet they don't have flush toilets," Clint said. 

"That's very practical, as a consideration."

"I've remodeled three bathrooms. I understand the vital necessity of plumbing," Clint replied. 

Bruce approached the rift as Tony descended, flanked by Sam and Thor. Tony gestured at Thor, who stepped up and swung his hammer at the rift. At the moment it would have passed through, Tony hit it with a repulsor blast; the blast seemed to fracture itself, spiderwebbing across the rift, and then it was closed. 

"My physics professors would be so proud," Tony said, waving a hand through where the rift had been, experimentally. "Hey, time for a meal, right? That's the deal, we save the world, then we get food." 

"Press conference first," Steve reminded him. 

"But why press conferences," Clint whined. 

"Because we need to make sure people like us. It's not like we even _did_ much," Steve said, trying to keep his tone neutral. "Look, I'll talk, you guys look heroic in the background, it'll be fine. I'll keep it quick." 

Famous last words. 

***

"Boy, yeah, that sure was quick," Tony said, as Steve walked away from the makeshift podium-and-cameras that SHIELD and probably some of the helpful newsmedia had set up. Steve, jaw set, reminded himself that silence was a valid response to Tony Stark sometimes. 

"People had a lot of questions," he said neutrally. 

"Sure. Hey Cap, _I've_ got a question, why the fuck do you let people ask you about your personal life?" Tony asked. He'd climbed out of the suit while Clint was warming up the crowd, and underneath he was in a pair of greasy jeans, an undershirt, and a frayed belt. 

"Here's a question, why do you dress like you can't afford clothes?" Steve retorted. 

"Zing. Wow," Tony said in a bored voice. "The passion has gone out of our relationship." 

"Yes, Tony, clearly it was preferable when we were in magically-induced rages and at each others' throats," Steve sighed. "Look, they're going to talk no matter what I say. I might as well control what gets out there."

"You just talked about your breakup on television as if it were a book report," Tony said. 

"Neutrality is the best way to ensure people find no interest in it. Anyway, if I show emotion, Sharon's the one who gets targeted. Not exactly fair to her." 

"She did dump you."

"She had pretty good reasons," Steve said. He kept his voice even. 

"See? Book report."

"I'm not going to deny she had good reason to dump me just because she dumped me, Tony." 

"Look, I stopped talking about my personal life in public years ago so let me give you some advice."

"Sex tape on youtube?" Steve suggested.

"Okay now _that one_ hurt a little," Tony said, sounding pleased. "Come on, Steve, you're allowed to not talk about this, and you're also allowed to have issues with it." 

"What issues would I have?"

"Rejection hurts? Failed relationships make us feel like failures?" Clint asked, jogging past. 

"You know, I would happily put my relationships in a box that nobody is allowed to touch or talk about," Steve called after him. 

"That ship has sailed," Natasha replied, chasing after Clint. "Clint, I swear to God if you eat the steak I was saving for dinner I will kill you and eat you instead!" 

"I'm happy not to talk about it," Bruce said, coming up on Tony's other side. 

"Thank you, Bruce," Steve said. 

"I get it all second-hand from Tony anyway," Bruce added. 

"Bruce," Steve and Tony said in unison, but probably for different reasons. 

"I'm just saying, you're allowed to be messed up. Having feelings is a thing," Tony continued, gesturing vaguely. "I mean, I'm not _good_ at them but I _have_ them."

"If the Army meant me to have feelings it would have issued them to me," Steve said, just as they reached Stark Tower. They passed through the lobby, where several Stark Industries employees stopped what they were doing to applaud. Steve pasted a smile on his face and waved, then gently grabbed Tony by the back of his shirt and dragged him into the private penthouse elevator when he started grandstanding. 

In the kitchen, at least one steak was sizzling; apparently Natasha and Clint had negotiated a truce. Bruce went to the fridge and began taking out what looked like the fixings for a tofu stew of some kind, Sam hovering around him and taking packages from him as he rummaged. Tony was on the phone with a pizza place. Thor, who had flown back ahead of them, was standing in front of the microwave, staring at it intently. 

"I am making popcorn for all," he announced, pointing to two gently steaming bags of microwave popcorn sitting on the counter. 

"Sweet," Tony replied, grabbing one. "It's extra-butter. Cap?"

Steve felt tired suddenly, bone-weary and well-aware that he had ten million things to do. Apparently breakups in the twenty-first century were complicated things, and he had email from Sharon to answer. He and Sam were supposed to be meeting later to talk about the ongoing search for Bucky, and he had some reports from SHIELD to sort through because even though he had very clearly, so he thought, turned in his resignation, he still had to keep an eye on them. There were probably new intel reports from JARVIS on the Bucky front, he hadn't done laundry yet this week, and he was sure that there were several things he was forgetting. 

And he didn't really feel like keeping up his end of the conversation if it was going to be about his failures as a person and potential failures as a superhero. 

"No thanks," he said to Tony, and then, "save some stew for me," to Bruce. "I'm going to write up my after-action."

"Teacher's pet," Tony said, but not unkindly, at least. 

"Sure," Steve sighed, and backed out of the kitchen before anyone could ask him if he was okay. 

He had half a floor to himself on the level below the common area: a bedroom, a lounge, the most palatial bathroom he'd ever seen, let alone made use of, and a kitchen that was currently in need of a cleaning. He tossed his helmet on the counter, shucked his jacket and boots, and shed his trousers and uniform undershell on his way to the bedroom. Once down to his skivvies he set his shield next to the dresser, found a pair of soft sweatpants -- the future did have many advantages, sweatpants being one of them -- and pulled on a shirt Clint had given him as a joke, which had his shield on it with a disposable coffee cup in place of the star, captioned CAPTAIN COFFEE. 

Every room in his apartment had doors out onto a wraparound balcony, but it was cold this high up; in the bedroom he just pulled a chair up to the glass and curled up in it, looking out at the sky and the bare tops of the skyscrapers. 

Tony _wasn't_ very good at emotions, and his coping methods were at best destructive, but there were moments he wished he could find somewhere he could make something blow up. It did sound cathartic. 

The reporters had been brutal. Worse, the whole time he'd been worried that they'd turn their questions about Sharon into cruel speculation. He didn't mind being savaged by the press, was used to it by now -- in some ways it was better than the simpering puff-PR adulation he'd had during the war. Better he take the brunt; he was a public figure, after all. But it still wasn't pleasant, and the anxiety and sense of failure that he'd felt in front of the cameras was inevitably followed by the deep sense of loss that would probably be with him all his life. You couldn't shake off seventy years of lost time. 

It was sometimes hard to remember what it had been like before the Serum, whether he'd always _felt_ so much. He figured it was probably the only thing the Serum hadn't altered; he saw more, heard better, and definitely hit harder and ran faster. But if he'd always had so much emotion in him, at some point it must have been easier to manage. He'd spent a good ten years of his life being rejected, so it shouldn't sting. Or at least he shouldn't mind the sting. 

There was a thump from the living room, a clatter like a door being opened, and then Tony's voice. "Cap?" 

Steve reached for the tablet sitting on his bedside table, pulling it into his lap so that it would at least look like he was working. "In the bedroom. Also, normal people knock."

"Why be normal?" Tony called back. Steve could hear him padding across the floor and then he toed the door open. A rich, garlicky smell filled the room. "Bruce says the stew's not as good reheated. I drew the short straw." 

He had two bowls in his hands, and set one of them in Steve's lap, heedless of the tablet or of Steve's _actual lap_. Steve tucked his shirt up a little to insulate the bowl. 

It took at least an hour for Bruce to make stew the way he liked it. He was losing track of time again; he'd done that sometimes when he first woke up. 

"Thanks," Steve said, because he wasn't sure what else he ought to say. Tony sat down on his bed, and Steve turned his head, resting it against the back of the chair. "Do not get gravy on my quilt." 

"I make no promises," Tony said, around a chunk of potato. 

"So did you draw the short straw to bring me dinner or to make sure I'm not sulking and listening to sad music?" Steve asked. 

"Prickly!" Tony gave him a smile. "The Army didn't issue you any feelings but it sure did issue a sharp tongue."

"Born with that," Steve replied, taking a bite of stew and resisting the urge to curl up around it, because it was warm and tasted really good. "It's a genetic quirk of the Irish."

"You're about as Irish as a Pringle," Tony said. "Somewhere in your history is a potato but that's about it." 

"I'm fine, Tony."

Tony had a way of cocking his head, of studying a person, that reminded Steve of a bird. At first he'd thought it was mostly like a sparrow -- small, harmless, inquisitive -- but he'd come to understand it was the way a raptor looked at a mouse. It was...targeting.


End file.
